lean on me

last weekend i came home to find my mailbox leaning at about 45 degrees away from my driveway. there is a curved tire track across my neighbors driveway, cutting thru the triangle of grass between ours, and across mine, heading directly for my mailbox. thru my mastery of geometry, i've figured out that a car has struck my mailbox. there was a policeman's business card in the leaning mailbox. i've left a few messages, and he's returned with a few back, we have not actually spoken yet. i assume he has more information than i do, which i'm really anxious to get. my theory is that the police were chasing someone, who turned down my dead-end court, and tried to round the court... and then the chase abruptly ended atop to my mailbox. i hope it's something that cool at least, i don't want it to be just something boring like the recycling truck nailed it while maneuvering around the court. i figure it's at least something semi-interesting because there was some sort of police involvement. we'll see, i'll let you know after i talk to the officer and get the whole scoop. the mailbox is on a plain old wooden post, which pushed straight back up with little effort. i borrowed a shovel full of compost dirt from my neighbor to fill the earth void, and tamped it down to hold it in place again. with a little rain, the grass will blend itself right back together, and the alleged crime scene will be undetectable.
on a lighter note, i went to my first roller derby match last night. it was really an awesome time! my friends know one of the girls that skates for the M80's, i've met her a few times, but didn't know she was a roller skater. she wasn't competing however, due to a broken shoulder. she stood on the sideline, one arm in a sling, the other holding her trusty PBR, and cheered the team on. yes, you read that right, they were selling Pabst Blue Ribbon, and if that wasn't classy enough, it was only available in 24oz. 2X4 Cans!!! i had Two, and they were Fantastic!! it really helped to round out the mood of the event. they handed out little programs which had all the rules and referee signals and such, which i will have to read, because i'm still cloudy on most of what i saw. well, our team won (they're undefeated this season) and they will go on to compete in the championship sometime in october. i'll be going for sure!

goodbye to another great one

last night... couldn't decide where to go for dinner... i said anything but mexican, because i've not been impressed with any of the mexican i've had lately... the suggestion was thai food in the loop, that didn't really sound good to me, but oh well. so we're headed out 40, passing skinker, and i say "Hey, what about Chuy's?" "what's that?" i hear. only the best mexican food in st. louis! so i take the next exit and loop back like i know where i'm going, i've never driven there, only been a passenger, so i didn't have any idea where it was. a quick cruise down restaurant alley and there it is! i, of course, got a fantastic parking spot right in front... i'm good like that... it's late, around 8:30, it's totally packed, i figured it was just the happy hour crowd still there. the wait is going to be about 40 minutes, so i grab drinks from the bar. "you're out of corona?" si, we're out of almost everything. so i get a dos XX and a strawberry margarita, which he looks nervous about too... he looks back and says "that'll probably be the last one" i say fine. then standing around waiting, people are hugging the waiters as they leave, telling them goodbye, we'll miss you kinda stuff... i figured they were moving away or something... then a completely different group did the same thing. and i started looking around, and found a sign on the front door. it said that they are closing their doors, the last night of operation would be july 3rd.. it Was the 3rd! it said they were closing mostly due to the hwy 40 shut down, slow down of business and the rising prices of food. bummer, because it was a really good, fun place to eat or have a happy hour. when the bartender said "that's probably the last one", i was picturing the ice cream machine at pizza street, yes, it's empty, but it will be running again in 20 minutes... i didn't realize it at the time, but i bought the last frozen strawberry margarita from Chuy's in Dogtown. =(

yard work

okay, i've thrown down the green gauntlet in the court by starting my yard work today. i put fertilizer out 2 weekends ago (before all the rain... perfect) so it's green and fairly tall in spots already. so i mowed this afternoon, tried to give it a chance to dry a little, it was still pretty soupy in low spots. when i finished mowing, i sprinkled patch master grass seed on my problem spots in the back yard, which has that killer blue fertilizer/mulch stuff in it, so it looks totally stupid, but it works pretty good.
what else is new, it's been forever since i've blogged. i need to order new burners for my grill, since i'm late getting started on grilling season. during my final grilling last year, i noticed a hot spot at the back of the middle burner cover, checked it out last weekend, and the burner tube has completely split open, it's basically a flame thrower. i have to order them from the internet, because home depot (where i bought it) doesn't carry replacement parts for this brand (don't get me started on them).
my next door neighbors (the ones i don't like) i thought the daughter was the only one that had a chance at being normal, well, i have a reason to dislike her now too. they got a new dog recently, it's some kind of little yippy kick dog, my cat could kick it's ass... so last weekend i was having ocd-fest, cleaning everything, and see legs walk past my bedroom window, it's daughter next door walking their new dog, i see the top of her head thru my kitchen window, hanging out over there for a few minutes... and sure as shit, she let it shit over there twice... anyone want a dog? or a very small fur coat??
well, my former arch-nemisis (the other contending best lawn in the court) has moved out, there are new people moving in this weekend. i heard from one of the court wives that it's an older couple... haven't met them yet, hope he's not retired and plans on working on his lawn all the time, i'll have to cut his achile's tendon... my neighbor on the other side's new fiance, that just moved in, runs a lawn sprinkler company, so we're already planning to put in-ground sprinkler systems in our yards... he can get the materials at cost, and the machinery for free, it'll be a pretty sweet deal!

decisions

i've looked through all my options, and i'm going with the sponge... for my ceiling paint anyways... i've been dreading sanding my drywall patches all over my ceiling, because of the sand finish in the paint, sanding would leave big smooth areas... so i tried wiping the patched areas down with a damp sponge, and it worked great, it took the edges away and the smooth surface out of the new mud, and let the sand finish pop thru again. it also let pieces of sponge clinging to the ceiling, and big yellow smears all over, the sand finish was rough enough to shred the sponges, but the primer should cover all of that. which i hope to get done next weekend. i'm excited, because i'm almost ready to paint color in there... finally. my interior designer changed my mind about my kitchen color, it's not going to be such a bright orange, but more of a softer mustardy yellow/orange kinda color. it matches the other colors better. sucks that i won't have time to work on it this week, i've either got something planned, or i'll be working overtime, because i have a Bunch of big projects going on at once. i was off for MLK day today, but i worked for a few hours on the one that goes out this thursday. sorry, i usually try to finish with a joke, but i'm tired, and nothing really funny is coming to mind...

my car

you never really realize the power of red bull and vodka until you feel it's wrath at 65 miles per hour, as someone turns your brand new shiny car into the BarfMobile. last night we had guy's night out, went to the fights and had a blast. Somebody took it upon himself to drink the better half of a bottle of skyy vodka and about 10 red bulls. said person was ready to go all night, and talking of going down to the landing, until we got in the car, and i asked him if he was sure he could handle the landing... he slurs Hell Yeah! and rolls down his window and starts spitting, which i've learned from past stories is the sign that he's about to hurl. so i tell him that the landing would only be open for about a half hour by the time we get there, which was more or less true, and i turn towards the highway to go home. as soon as i merged over a few lanes onto 270, his window goes down again, out goes his head... and he starts hurling, it's coming out like a red bull flavored fire hose... of course there are cars all over the place, and they won't get out of the way for me to get over really fast, so we were spraying them too, they either didn't mind, or couldn't see the red bull fountain coming from my passenger window. for the rest of the way home he sat there with a blank look, and about every 3 or 4 minutes, would roll down the window and spray some more or just spit. i even asked him one time, "damn, aren't you empty yet?" of course i kept talking to him... half to give him shit, and half to keep him awake, so he was alert enough to keep rolling down the window. so after many slurred street names and pointing and grunting, i got him to his house, and he got in by using the garage keypad code, which took him about 3 tries. i needed gas anyways, so i drove around and finally found a gas station with a touch free car wash that was actually open. filled up and sat thru the car wash hut, which was really cool. being all lemony fresh, i get home right around 3am. this morning, i cleaned out the interior, it was all over the place, both doors on that side, front and back seat, the windows on that side, and some streaks across the head liner, those were the hardest to get off. oh well, it's not like i've never done it so somebody else's car... maybe there should be a blood alcohol limit to be a passenger in a car too.

nice weather / drinking tip

well, i had a nice relaxing Sunday working my ass off... i got up on the roof and took down all the Xmas lights, then i cleaned out the garage, because during the week, i was emptying the shop vac and knocking all the drywall dust out of it's filter, in the trash can right around the corner from my garage, so there's a mushroom cloud of white drywall dust all around me, which i am used to by now. out of nowhere, this giant gust of wind rips between the houses and u-turns right this whole batch of dust into the garage... car is covered, over then next few days, there were tire tracks and feet prints that you could clearly see, it looked like a csi crime scene... so i swept the garage out, washed and vacuumed out the car, cleaned the door jambs and all. i didn't clean inside the engine bay, maybe next time... then my buddy called and said he was bbq'ing, so i cleaned myself up and went over, and finally relaxed for a bit in the nice weather.

here's a story i get to blog about till now...
so, the day after xmas, i went to the blues hockey game with a friend. we had burgers and beers before the game, more beers at the game (i'm off work the next day, right?) then more beers after the game, we were meeting some people at McGirk's, right by my buddy's house, which is where i am definately staying the night by this point... Great irish band, with a guitar, a fiddle, and an electric bagpipe (it had an air pump attached, so it was just the pipes) very cool! so it's almost closing time, 12:30ish, and this Really Drunk guy stumbles in, literally... i mean having a hard time standing up drunk... so my buddy starts talking to the guy, cuz he's just like that... so this guy slurs "heyyyy, lemme buy you guys a driiiiink", so he staggers over to the bar and orders something, pays her $40 and doesn't get any change back. he starts waving us over because he can't carry drinks 10 feet to our table... here's the drinking tip... if some Really drunk guy is going to buy you a drink, perhaps this just might be the particular drink that has landed him in this state... so there on the bar are 3 Harp beers (for chasers) and 3 Irish car bombs. an irish car bomb is 3/4 of a draght glass of Guinness, and a shot glass, half bailey's irish cream and half jamieson irish whiskey. and he explains that you have to just chug it down or the guinness will start to curdle the bailey's, as he drops the shots into the guinnii (plural?) like depth charges... i'm always up for a challenge, so i slam mine with the drunk guy, my buddy says he can't do it cuz he has to drive (i later find out that it's just because he's done one of these before) so i slam his too. then we all stammer back to our table and drink the harp beer at a normal pace... last call lights come on, and we head a few blocks to my buddy's house, where i pass out on a futon mattress on his floor...
9:00am, he jumps in the shower and has to go to work, so i head home. what a horrible ride home it was, with a power hangover... i'm about half way, near the airport (where there are no exits or good places to pull over) and start getting the cold body sweats, i thought i was going to hurl, so i'm trying to plan a route over to the shoulder and i'll lean across, and take care of business out the passenger door... but with a quick opening of the windows, the cold air made it go away, and i was fine (with a headache) the rest of the way home...
That was the only day of my vacation that I didn't work on my house, i slept till like 3 that afternoon, and then watched tv (at low volume) for the rest of the day...

commercials

i wonder if they'll soon have a device which could automatically change the channel whenever a Billy Mays (the oxi-clean guy) commercial comes on... i'd glady "call now" and "make an easy payment of 19.95" to never have to hear this putz again... maybe it's just the channels i've been watching, but i have to listen to him about twice an hour... maybe in 2008 i'll try to watch even less tv...